Commercial automated incoming mail sorters are available and employed in the mailrooms of many large corporations. For example, the OLYMPUS II incoming mail sorter is available from Pitney Bowes Inc. of Stamford Conn. In such a system, incoming mail is fed into the sorting system that includes a subsystem for identifying the intended recipient in the particular organization. For example, an Optical Character Recognition process may be used to read the name of the intended recipient. The system may then search a database for the mail stop location associated with that intended recipient. Such systems utilize other subsystems and processes for determining the intended recipient and may also mark the mail piece with a code that provides information such as destination information. The system will typically employ a loop feed mechanism for moving mail pieces and a number of sort bins for output. A fully configured system may include 480 pockets or sort bins in multiple tiers and is capable of processing 36,000 letters per hour.
In a typical large company mailroom, a good deal of effort and significant amount of time is devoted to sorting through unsolicited mail. Since much of the unsolicited mail is also undesired and may go unopened and unread, such mail may waste the time of the mailroom employee and the intended recipient.
Advertising mail including direct mail advertising mail pieces is employed as a marketing tool by businesses around the country and is an important part of the mailstream. Direct Mail campaigns are often considered successful if they achieve at least a 2% response rate. Additionally, there is a current trend of decreasing single-piece first class mail volumes in the United States with some increase in presort and automation mail categories that are frequently used by direct mail advertisers. Mailroom employees may spend 25% or more of their time sorting Standard Class advertising mail. Accordingly, in a large corporate mailroom, there may be a significant percentage of advertising mail in the incoming mailstream. There has not been available an efficient system for selectively deciding whether to physically deliver certain suspected advertising mail using feed-forward or feedback systems. For example, an intended recipient may receive many pieces of mail in a daily or more frequent mail delivery when received from the centralized mailroom staff. The recipient then must sort through the mail to prioritize time-sensitive business communication. A particular recipient may put aside advertising mail for consideration at a convenient time. Additionally, since direct advertising mail response rates are typically at a 2% level, much of the advertising mail will be discarded locally either in an opened or unopened state. Then, custodial staff will typically be required to collect the discarded advertising mail and redeliver it to a central location such as for recycling or trash pickup.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide greater efficiency in processing incoming mail in order to provide greater efficiencies for mailroom staff and the intended recipients of the mail. There is a need for systems and processes that analyze the incoming mailstream and that use information to provide more efficient processing.
The mailroom staff working in certain corporate mailrooms may employ a drastic mail delivery reduction policy of discarding certain types of mail as a matter of course without determining the intended recipient (or a successor individual). For example, all non-profit mail is discarded at some corporate mailrooms. Certain companies may discard presorted mail such as presorted standard mail. However, first class mail is also often presorted and may include relatively important communications. Additionally, even though the USPS requires that personal information be mailed using first class service, it is possible that certain important information could be included in a standard class mailing. Accordingly, there is a need to reduce distribution of undesired mail without discarding relatively more important mail pieces.
Depending on the incoming mail sorting capability of a company, it may be possible to employ differing incoming mail delivery schedules based upon criteria such as the class of mail (e.g., first class compared with standard mail) or the type of mail (e.g., periodicals compared with letters). For example, standard class mail may be delivered only once per week (e.g., Friday). However, different individuals in the organization may have different schedules and mailroom capacity varies. Accordingly, there is a need to allow selective delayed delivery of incoming mail.